UpdatePower outage hits South Korea’s Ulsan petrochemical hub

06 December 2011 08:31[Source: ICIS news]

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SINGAPORE (ICIS)--A power failure halted production at some petrochemical facilities at ?xml:namespace>Ulsan, South Korea, including SK Energy’s two crackers with a combined capacity of 880,000 tonnes/year, industry sources said on Tuesday.

A spokesperson from SK Energy confirmed the shutdown of the company’s 190,000 tonne/year No 1 cracker and 690,000 tonne/year No 2 cracker at the site.

“We [will] try hard to restore [production] as soon as possible,” said Wookyung Kim at SK Energy’s public relations department, in an e-mailed statement.

At around 5:00 GMT, a 10-minute disruption to power supply occurred at Ulsan, said Kim, quoting information from Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO).

KP Chemical also halted operations at its 200,000 tonne/year No 1 purified isophthalic acid (PIA) unit and its 600,000 tonne/year No 2 purified terephthalic acid plant that are located at Ulsan, said a company source.

The company also had to reduce operating rates at its 350,000 tonne/year PTA plant at the site, said the source.

KP Chemical, however, continues to run its aromatics facilities at the site that can produce 775,000 tonne/year of paraxylene (PX) and 230,000 tonnes/year of orthoxylene (OX), said another company source.

But there are concerns about a possible shortage of feedstock that might arise with the shutdown of SK Energy’s crackers.

No word yet from SK Energy about any reduction on contract volumes, they said.